DHAKA: More than 142 million Brazilians are voting to choose the country’s next president, following a dramatic election campaign.

Early on, incumbent Dilma Rousseff had been expected to win outright.

However, the death of one of the main candidates and the popularity of his replacement, environmentalist Marina Silva, means the vote is now likely go to a second round.

Rousseff’s other main rival is Aecio Neves, a centrist, pro-business figure.

Voting began at 0800 (11:00 GMT), and voters will also select a federal parliament and state governors.

Neves was narrowly ahead of Silva, according to several opinion polls published on Saturday, which all put Rousseff in a commanding lead with about 45%.

Brazil’s voting system is all electronic and is likely to deliver a result within an hour or two of polls closing at 22:00GMT.

On the eve of the vote, the Superior Electoral Court moved to dismissed reports that the system was vulnerable to hacking, saying it was ‘fraud-proof’, despite frequent attempts to hack into the ballots, reports the BBC.

BDST: 1954 HRS, OCT 05, 2014